DB Heating & Cooling, Inc. Blog : Archive for the ‘Heat Pumps’ Category

Yes, You Need to Schedule Bi-Annual Heat Pump Maintenance

Monday, April 16th, 2018

Heat-pumpWell, it’s that time again. Time for your spring heat pump preventive maintenance appointment! Now, if you’ve had your heat pump tuned-up sometime in the last 6-8 months, you might be wondering why we’re saying such a thing after less than a year. The answer is simple: heat pumps need more maintenance than air conditioners or heaters. Avoiding bi-annual maintenance is a great way to make your heat pump less efficient and more prone to issues. Don’t believe us? Read on to find out why this is.

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Need a New Heater? How About a Ductless System!

Monday, March 5th, 2018

ductless-system-installationWe’re coming to the end of winter in a few weeks, which may seem like an odd time to consider replacing your heating system. Still, if you have reason to believe that your current system just isn’t up to the task of keeping you warm for another season, now might be a good time to install a new one. That way, you don’t have to scramble to find one at the same time as everyone else!

There are a lot of different home heating options available on the market, but today we’re going to focus on a specific one. Let’s take a look at ductless mini splits, and what one can do for you during the winter season.

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Remember to Schedule Heat Pump Maintenance This Fall

Monday, November 27th, 2017

heat-pumpYou’ve probably been using your heat pump in heating mode for several weeks now, since the weather has started to cool off. Before we get too far into the heating season, though, it’s important that you make sure that your heat pump is ready for the added demand. There are a number of ways that you can go about preparing your heat pump for the winter season, but none is as effective as scheduling preventive maintenance. This is a good thing to do, even if you have already scheduled preventive maintenance earlier in the year.

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Remember: Your Ductless System Needs Bi-Annual Maintenance

Monday, August 21st, 2017

ductlessWe might be in the middle of summer, but for one part of your home it’s already time to start thinking about next season. We’re talking about scheduling professional maintenance for your ductless system. Now, you might be thinking that’s rather absurd, considering you just had a professional check out your ductless mini split a few months ago. However, there’s a very good reason why you want to schedule maintenance for your ductless system at least twice a year.

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3 Things You May Not Know about Heat Pumps

Monday, February 15th, 2016

A heat pump is just like your standard central air conditioning system, aside from a few major changes that allow it to heat as well. We often recommend heat pumps to homeowners searching for a new comfort system, but we find that a large number of our customers do not know much about them. Here, we offer 3 pieces of information that may be new to you. Learn more about heat pumps below!

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You Need to Clean Your Heat Pump’s Outdoor Unit of Snow

Monday, November 30th, 2015

We know you don’t want to think about snow, especially with our continued mild weather. But it is coming, and if you own a heat pump system, you need to be vigilant about removing snow from your heat pump’s outdoor unit. Otherwise, you could see your system experience malfunction and you may find that your heat isn’t working as well as it should. To understand why, it’s important to review how a heat pump heats your home.

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Why Your Heat Pump Needs to Be Maintained Twice a Year

Monday, October 5th, 2015

Many of our customers in the Wyckoff, NJ area enjoy using a heat pump system for their homes. These systems can be very convenient because they offer both heating and cooling. You may be aware that maintenance is required, but when you own a heat pump, annual maintenance is not enough. The heating and cooling pros at DB Heating & Cooling are here to help with all of your heat pump needs, including bi-annual maintenance. Why bi-annual? Let’s take a look.

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Can a Furnace Be Used for Ductless Heating?

Thursday, January 15th, 2015

Ductless heating and cooling has become very popular over recent years, which isn’t surprising as these systems have a number of benefits you can’t get with other types of HVAC systems. However, they do have their limitations, and one limitation is that a ductless system cannot provide heating via a furnace. But don’t be so quick to toss that furnace out! Why? Because an LG ductless mini-split system can act as a back-up heating system for your Bergen County, NJ home.

How Ductless Heating Works

Ductless systems provide heat by utilizing heat pump technology. What this means is that a ductless heating system has a component known as a reversing valve that allows the system to switch between heating and cooling capability. The system is set-up the same as a ductless air conditioning system: an outdoor unit containing the compressor and condenser connects directly to indoor blowers (up to 4) via a conduit placed in an exterior wall. The blowers contain the other necessary parts for heating and cooling, including a fan, coils and a small air filter. Everything needed to heat and cool your home is contained in these components, which is why it isn’t necessary to have ductwork.

Benefits of a Ductless Heating System

There are multiple benefits to be gained from a ductless heating system:

  • Great energy efficiency – heat pumps do not use fossil fuels and on average use about 25% of the electricity of a whole-home air conditioning system to operate, making them very energy efficient.
  • Customized heating – the indoor blowers operate individually, allowing you to customize your home’s heating, very similar to the way a zone control system does.
  • Long lifespan – the average lifespan for a heat pump is 20-25 years; comparatively, a combustion heating system has an average lifespan of 15-20.
  • Very versatile – not only can a ductless system work with an air-source heat pump, it can also work with a geothermal ground-source or water-source heat pump.

If a ductless heating system seems like a good fit for your home, you may want to consider the installation of an LG ductless mini-split system.

The experts at DB Heating & Cooling can help you determine if an LG ductless system is right for your living space, so call us today!

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How Heat Pumps Work for both Heating and Air Conditioning

Thursday, December 18th, 2014

More and more homeowners countrywide are installing heat pumps for their myriad of benefits. Perhaps the most unique benefit to using a heat pump, however, is its ability to act as both a heater and an air conditioner. Let’s examine how this functionality is made possible, and why it’s such a huge advantage for the heat pump over other systems.

Anatomy of a Heat Pump

In order to understand how a heat pump can switch functions, you must first understand the different parts of a heat pump. There are two main parts we’ll be discussing in this part, the interior unit and the exterior unit. As you might have guessed, the interior unit is inside the house while the exterior unit is outside. These two units are connected by a refrigerant line, which flows into a coil housed in each one. These coils are the most important part of the system. When the heat pump is turned on, one coil will evaporate refrigerant while the other will condense it back into liquid. When the refrigerant evaporates, it leeches thermal energy out of the air and into the coil. When the refrigerant is condensed back into liquid, it releases the captured thermal energy so that the system can heat the house.

The Reversing Valve

The key to the heat pump’s dual functionality is a part called the “reversing valve.” In a normal system, like an air conditioner, the refrigerant flows only one way between the two coils. There’s a condenser coil and an evaporator coil, and the two never switch. The reversing valve works by reversing the flow of refrigerant, thereby making the condenser coil the evaporator coil and vice versa. This means that each coil can either take heat from the area around it or release heat instead. It is in this way that the heat pump can move heat back and forth in either direction between the house and the outside air.

If you’d like to know more about heat pumps, call DB Heating & Cooling. We install heat pumps throughout Bergen County.

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Common Myths about Heat Pumps

Friday, April 4th, 2014

Heat pumps are newer to the HVAC world than air conditioners, boilers, and furnaces, although they have a history going back to the 1940s. Because they entered homes only after a longer period in commercial use, a number of basic misunderstandings still surround them. We’ll look at a few of these and try to clear them up. We hope this will give you a better idea of what a heat pump can do for your home comfort.

DB Heating & Cooling has extensive experience with heat pump repair in Emerson, NJ, as well as installation and maintenance services. Rely on us when it comes to heating and cooling your home.

“Heat pumps are a separate AC and heater packaged together.”

Unlike the units that contain an air conditioner and a furnace in one cabinet, only sharing the same blower, heat pumps are single machines that use the same action to provide both heating and cooling. The only difference in a heat pump between the its modes is the direction that the refrigerant moves. In heating mode, the refrigerant carries heat from outside and moves it inside; in cooling mode, the refrigerant carries heat from inside and moves it outside.

“Heat pumps are fine for air conditioning, but can’t handle cold weather.”

There is some truth in this… but not much. Heat pumps work as well at cooling as any standard AC of the same size. Their heating power is not as strong. However, a heat pump can certainly handle cold temperatures, and it only starts to lose efficiency in extreme cold weather. Most heat pumps are equipped with electric resistance coils that turn on when the outside temperature gets too cold, so your home will be comfortable no matter the outside temperature.

“Heat pumps are expensive to run.”

This confusion comes from thinking that having heating and cooling power in one unit means the system drains power faster. But as we noted above, heat pumps use the same process for both modes. A heat pump in cooling uses as much power as an air conditioner. A heat pump in heating mode is far more efficient than an electric furnace. Your heat pump only requires a small amount of fuel (electricity) to move heat instead of creating it. Studies have shown that a family switching from an electric furnace to a heat pump can save up to 30% off their heating bills over winter.

If you need service technicians who cut through the confusion around heat pumps and bring you the installation, maintenance, or heat pump repair in Emerson, NJ you need, call DB Heating & Cooling.

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